Alonso must obey rules of Real Madrid for success

Miguel L. Pereira can be found on social media here, and if you’re hungry for more, Miguel has also written a book delving into the heights and depths of Spanish football, and all it’s cultural and social layers. Find out more about it here.

There’s no place you can feel truly safe when you’re a Real Madrid manager. It is one of the toughest jobs in world football, not just because it is a club that demands to win everything all the time, but essentially because it is one that mistrusts football managers. Few have triumphed with their own ideas in its long, successful history, and when they did, it came at a cost. Xabi Alonso is starting to understand what it’s all about, even if he is, precisely, one of the very few who could not say they haven’t been warned in the past.

Some clubs belong to players. Others belong to football managers. Real Madrid is in the first category. You can even say it almost defined it. This is a club built by a chairman who was, in his own right, a very successful player in his youth and who believed to understood the game better than anyone. And, of course, by one of the greatest players of all time, one who, even if he was a successful manager later on, always distrusted the role of the man in the dugout.

The Chamartin crowd grew upholding Alfredo di Stefano’s values of grit, character, personality, winning mentality and flair, alongside Santiago Bernabeu’s sense of belonging and ability to adapt to circumstances, anticipating the future even. Football managers were never loved or admired as they were in other latitudes. Take the metro east to the new Metropolitano, and you can easily understand how Atletico Madrid became a club that has delivered its soul to two football managers – even if they were also successful former players for the side – in Luis Aragones and Diego Pablo Simeone. Barcelona, Real Madrid’s greatest rivals, have been moulded to their modern version, the one many love and admire, by the Dutch genius Johan Cruyff. Not Cruyff the player, as so many recall wrongly, but Cruyff the manager.

Until then, Barca were a club searching for an identity but always trusting more in global superstars, from Ladislao Kubala to Diego Armando Maradona, than in managers. When they sacked Helenio Herrera, who had just won back-to-back leagues against the mighty Real Madrid in the midst of a run of five European Cup wins, they proved as much and paid the price for it. Real Madrid, on the contrary, never once put their heart in the hands of one man and got away with it.

Vanguard managers were hired, here and there, some pragmatists like Fabio Capello, others more romantic, as Jorge Valdano always was, but the club seemed more comfortable in the arms of a fatherly figure, the same thing Bernabeu and Di Stefano were in their prime. Men who understood that players came first, that they needed to express themselves freely to entertain the crowd and collect silverware. Their only job was not getting in their way and keeping a harmonious environment in the dressing room.

Of course, they weren’t tactically inept; on the contrary. Luis Molowny or Vicente del Bosque – two of the more charismatic fatherly figures in the history of Spanish football – were tactically much more superior than they have been labelled, and even Miguel Munoz, probably a more limited manager, knew a thing or two about the game. The same could be said of both Zinedine Zidane and Carlo Ancelotti, the managers who defined the second golden era of Real Madrid. They were tactically sound, great at man management, and had strong personalities. Yet they knew their place in the hierarchy and, above all, were beloved by the players who enjoyed their company, teachings, and achievements.

When they were briefly replaced by the likes of Rafael Benitez, Julen Lopetegui or Santiago Solari, who were dying to leave their personal imprint on the club, morale collapsed and so did the team. Alonso might also remember the Jose Mourinho years, the only time perhaps in history where the manager was the media star of the side. That didn’t end well either; Mourinho ceased to be ‘the special one’ when he decided to confront the special ones in the dressing room. They were too much, even for him. 

Ask around who recalls the names of the Real Madrid managers, who won the club’s first six European Cups? Few will come up with the answers. Or the three managers who coached the famous Quinta del Buitre in their glorious five consecutive league title wins. Even most modern Madridistas will stumble on that one. But they know the players’ names, the kits and will recall a couple of results as well.

Alonso is a football fanatic and has an inside knowledge of everything related to the club, so none of this is news to him. Apart from the ego that every football player and manager has, there must have been solid reasons to spurn offers from Liverpool and Bayern Munich. Perhaps a promise from the board that he would get full support in how he conducted things in the dressing room. Or that the transfer market would address key positions in his tactical scheme, one synonymous with him his Real Sociedad B days.

Alonso🗣️

“Mbappe is very important. Of course, scoring is so important but his personality, his leadership, his weight in the dressing room.”

“I was much calmer than you might expect. I’m not novice at this. I know that the path is long and not easy.”

Credit: UEFA👇Full story pic.twitter.com/nrbJk7DKjB

— Football España (@footballespana_) November 27, 2025

However, December has arrived, and with it the first calls for the sacking of a manager who was leading the league four days prior, had won the first Clasico played in the campaign and was comfortably in the Champions League top eight. That’s Real Madrid for you. That side, his side hasn’t played well all season; there were key positions on the pitch that should have been addressed in the transfer market, and the squad suffered from important injuries preventing their best XI from playing regularly.

All that is true. But everyone who saw his first weeks on the job, during the Club World Cup, could see his personal imprint on the side, despite having conducted only a few training sessions. That is all but gone now. Alonso’s side grows increasingly dependent on Kylian Mbappe’s goals – most coming from the spot, and Thibaut Courtois’ ability to stop almost everything that comes his way. That is to say, little has changed from the Ancelotti days. The problem is, few things have changed because the dressing room remains the same, and that is where the problems of the club have always been. Now, before and in the future.

Few dressing rooms are so capable of sacking managers as Real Madrid’s, all the way back to the day when Bernabeu said goodbye to Manuel Fleitas Solich because the players were tired of his tactical reshuffles. Since then, brilliant managers have suffered the same fate. When Florentino Perez said his goodbyes in 2006, complaining he had given too much power to his Galacticos, he was just mimicking what the club had always done with previous generations and what is happening once again with the likes of Vinicius Junior or Jude Bellingham.

Xabi Alonso appears to have improved relations with his Real Madrid stars, but what did he give up during the negotiations? Fully story below👇 pic.twitter.com/eHSVOxqkgU

— Football España (@footballespana_) November 30, 2025

This was illustrated by Alonso restoring the English international to the starting XI on the afternoon they were hammered by Atletico Madrid, and helps to explain why the manager feels the need to have some key names by his side. Even if at times, it doesn’t make any sense when you think about how the team was expected to perform under him. There’s none of the aggression, pressing, quick transitions and ability to move the ball that we saw at Leverkusen. Real Madrid are sluggish in defence, slow and predictable in possession and overly dependent on one man.

Gonzalo Garcia, the young, promising striker who made a name for himself during the Club World Cup, doesn’t get any minutes, even when the plan seems to be bomb balls into the box. His aerial ability should be key, but as he comes last in the rank of names available for the central attacking position, he cannot play the role Joselu Mato performed under Ancelotti. The need to thrust the promising new signing Mastantuono on the starting XI when he still is clearly a raw for the elite game, instead of trusting in academy graduates or lower key players, also  reflects the need to find a balance between his philosophy and the power struggles behind closed doors.

Then, there’s Vinicius. Few players in world football can be as toxic as the Brazilian. A very talented winger, a man who already performed wonders for the club, Vinicius has been a shadow of himself since he lost the Ballon d’Or to Rodri against all the odds. He has allowed the persona he created for his publicity stunts, a sort of Mahatma Gandhi of football, that few people actually believe is genuine, to supplant his football identity. His claims are often fair, and require immediate action from the football authorities, but it’s more distraction than fuel for Vinicius. The fact that Perez preferred to sign Mbappe to be the star man of his project instead of reinforcing his role after a brilliant 2023/24 campaign might have something to do with it too.

Ultimately, Alonso can’t find a place for himself in his tactical scheme, but also doesn’t have the strength to win a power struggle with a global star who will be out of his contract at the end of next season. Even Rodrygo Goes, a much smaller figure within the dressing room, has managed to stay after a tense summer market full of speculation, receiving more minutes than many expected. Little of it has much to do with football, but with group dynamics. And that is why, in the history of Real Madrid, being able to manage a group of giant egos has always proved more practical than hiring someone who conceives of the game with all the players adhering obediently one man’s particular idea.  

Alonso’s job may not be on the hook, and it makes no sense that there is actually a discussion about it so early in the season, but once again, Real Madrid is proving to be a club where football managers are not loved or admired. They are a necessity. If they dream of imposing themselves on the club or the players, as Bill Shankly, Sir Alex Ferguson, Arsene Wenger, Jurgen Klopp, Pep Guardiola, or Cruyff did, they are in for a huge surprise. Only time will tell what will happen to the promising Basque manager, but he knows perfectly well where he has landed, and don’t expect Alonso to wave his personal white flag just yet.